How Cleaner Salt Production in Tanga Is Improving Nutrition Outcomes

When you ask families in Tanga what salt means to them, the answer is often simple: “It’s something we cook with every day.” Yet few realise that the quality of that salt; its purity, safety, and level of iodization; directly affects the health of households, particularly children and pregnant women. For years, salt producers in Tongoni and Masiwani worked with unlined pans, contaminated crystals, and unpredictable yields. Salt was often sold locally without consistent iodization, leaving families vulnerable to iodine deficiency, which contributes to goiter, impaired development, and weakened immunity. Today, a different story is unfolding. Improvements in infrastructure, training, and coordination, supported by the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), are transforming production from low-quality, non-iodized salt to safer, cleaner, and more reliable salt that strengthens household nutrition.

Positioning Youth as Leaders of Food Systems Transformation: Insights from the Youth Voices Project in Arusha, Tanzania

- 24/04/2026

Young people are an influential force in food systems, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, yet their perspectives remain underrepresented in policy and decision-making. This case study explores how youth leadership programmes can strengthen young people’s understanding of food systems, develop their leadership and communication skills, and enable them to engage meaningfully with stakeholders across multiple levels. It illustrates how experiential learning, peer collaboration, and opportunities for collective action allow youth to influence decision-making, advocate for inclusive reforms, and contribute to sustainable transformation. The study highlights how positioning young people as active participants in food systems can gain traction and considers how such approaches could be scaled and institutionalised to ensure that youth perspectives are systematically integrated into food system initiatives.

Using Collective Action to Amplify Youth Voices and Influence Food Systems Policy in Tanzania

- 24/04/2026

Young people represent a critical yet underutilised force in transforming food systems. This case study examines how youth-led collective action campaigns can serve as a mechanism to amplify youth voices and influence food system transformation. It shows how young people can engage with decision-makers at both local and national levels to shape agendas, embed inclusivity, and create opportunities for meaningful participation in policy processes. This case underscores how collective action can reposition young people as active agents of change in food system policy and offers insights on how policymakers and stakeholders can support the integration of youth perspectives into formal decision-making structures.

Advancing Large-Scale Food Fortification (LSFF) through Localisation, and Coordination

- 25/03/2026

Tanzania has established a strong policy and regulatory framework mandating the fortification of staple foods, including wheat flour, maize flour, edible oils, and salt. Despite this progress, implementation and compliance gaps persist, limiting the public health impact that fortification programmes can achieve Market evidence and engagement with Millers for Nutrition (M4N) highlight that inconsistent compliance and coverage stems from structural barriers within Tanzania’s fortification ecosystem.

Lishe Shuleni Fact Sheet

- 25/03/2026

Despite progress in policy development, Tanzania’s school feeding programs still face significant implementation challenges, particularly in delivering nutritionally adequate meals. Although 96% of public primary schools provide meals, these often rely onmonotonous staples like maize and beans, which lack essential micronutrients. As a result, 25% of school-aged children remain stunted, with over one-third experiencing vitamin A deficiency or anemia.

I-CAN Policy Brief: Bridging Climate And Nutrition Policies In Tanzania

- 26/02/2026

I-CAN Policy Brief, June 2025. This policy brief highlights the challenges and opportunities arising from the need to better integrate climate and nutrition policies in Tanzania. Despite growing recognition of their interconnectedness, policies remain largely fragmented and operate in silos, particularly across health, nutrition, and other food systems sectors. Food and agriculture policies lead in climate-nutrition integration by including concrete strategies and accountability mechanisms. However, outdated legacy policies, weak institutional coordination, and fragmented financing and data systems hinder effective integration and implementation. Key barriers include limited cross-sectoral collaboration, under-resourced coordination structures, and lack of shared data and financing mechanisms. Recommendations include establishing a national Climate–Nutrition Coordination Committee, implementing integrated financing tracking, adopting joint monitoring indicators, and promoting inclusive stakeholder engagement to strengthen policy coherence and accelerate impactful climate-nutrition action in Tanzania.

African Day of School Feeding & International School Meals Day​ 2026

28 February 2026- 01 March 2026Global

GAIN marks African Day of School Feeding and International School Meals Day, using these moments to highlight how school meals can improve nutrition, learning outcomes, and local food systems when designed with quality, equity, and sustainability in mind.

Harnessing Youth Potential For Transforming Tanzania’s Food Systems

- 11/10/2025

Youth in Tanzania are active at the community level but remain largely absent from formal governance. There is potential for Tanzanian youth to more actively help Tanzania in its ambition to achieve a nutrition-sensitive, climate resilient, inclusive food system.

Where Global Change Begins: Inside food markets and the important role city governments play

As we prepare for the 2025 Global Forum (13 – 17 October) marking ten years of the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact, we're bringing insights from our work across Africa and Asia on how city governments and local food markets can transform urban food environments and wider food systems. Walking through any bustling urban food market, from Pemba (Mozambique) to Arusha (Tanzania) and Bogor (Indonesia), is a remarkable experience. Beyond the offerings of fresh, dried, iced and frozen produce, spices, cooked traditional meals, and animated negotiations between vendors and customers, the experience of the market is at the nexus of food systems and nutrition policies and daily realities. These markets are about more than selling and buying food; they are where the future of food systems, within cities and across urban–rural landscapes, borders, and territories, is being lived, innovated, and imagined.